Love the media wrap up. I also check out most of these podcasts and with the heavy EcoD lean lately in all things volleyball coaching, I appreciate the balanced perspective. We coach in the real world and I think GMS has it correct if you think about coaching skill acquisition “it takes what it takes” if that makes sense. This framework seems to work best for me right now: Tell me how to do it, let me get some reps using the simple cues you gave me, and then provide some constraints (problems to solve) that reinforce how to get it done, discuss, rinse and repeat.
Agreed. I think distinguishing between what does and doesn't matter is one of the most critical parts of coaching. The advantage of a less explicitly-technical approach is that you avoid overloading your players with technical coaching on stuff that doesn't matter. A lot of coaches do this and they are somewhere between "not helping" and "actively making players worse."
But I think what some (not all, certainly, and not the successful ones) coaches who are invested in EcoD should remember is that sport is physiological, not just neurological. To use the EcoD language, my physical size and strength creates "action capacity" to solve problems in ways that my 5 year-old daughter would not and could not self-organize into. That's an extreme example, but lesser versions of this can be seen even between two 16 year-old players on the same team. Some players who have never tried to pass outside their body and create angles by dropping their back shoulder do not have the strength and mobility to do it well. If they never try it, they never develop that ability. Thus, they'll continue to self-organize into sub-optimal solutions such as always trying to backpedal and get behind hard flat float serves.
Or, to put it into plain English: some players won't try certain things until specifically coached to do so.
exactly we don’t have enough time for them to come to an “optimal” solution most of the time assuming they would ever figure it out. the other possibility is i’m just not good enough implementing constraints, but my players don’t have enough time to wait on me to figure that out so…..
"First, I don’t like passing free balls in tempo. I don’t think passing a free ball lower/faster puts any additional pressure on blockers that are any good. For me, a high pass allows the offense to go faster."
Would be curious if there is any data on how the trajectory of the free ball pass affects hitting efficiency? You can see some teams making the free ball pass faster when one of the blockers is not on the net, being outside the court after having chased down a ball from the stunds. Some teams just do it consistently.
Also related to the height of the first contact: Is there any data on what is the "optimal" height of the reception/pass? In terms of setter being able to keep the attacker in rhytm and FBSO attack efficiency?
*You can see some teams making the free ball pass faster when one of the blockers is not on the net, being outside the court after having chased down a ball from the stunds. Some teams just do it consistently.*
That would make sense to me.
*Also related to the height of the first contact: Is there any data on what is the "optimal" height of the reception/pass? In terms of setter being able to keep the attacker in rhytm and FBSO attack efficiency?*
I don't have optimal data, which I would like to gather. I see the best players in the world generally keep the ball a bit higher than the antenna on float serves and higher passing hard-driven spins. I generally don't see the best teams pass free balls fast... I think offensive tempo is more about the speed from setter to hitter, not from passer to setter. I have seen too many teams try to tempo pass free-balls and it seems to me that all they do is risk making their own middle hitter late.
This is just my opinion though and I don't have concrete data to back it up.
Joe - enjoyed the media wrap up for sure...there's so much now on vb podcasts that it honestly hard to catch everything meaninful...i had listened to most of them but all...thanks for your summary...
and...totally on board with pancake superior to flipper, even though it seems to be gender biased at this point a bit
Agree with the pancakes! I agree with most I hear on volleypod but for most plays where a pancake is useful I feel like the pancake is the best choice. I think about times when I’ve had to pancake and in my head it seems like the only option. The point about refs getting it wrong was the part that kind of sold me. But Joe’s counterpoint put me back on pro pancake for sure!
Love the media wrap up. I also check out most of these podcasts and with the heavy EcoD lean lately in all things volleyball coaching, I appreciate the balanced perspective. We coach in the real world and I think GMS has it correct if you think about coaching skill acquisition “it takes what it takes” if that makes sense. This framework seems to work best for me right now: Tell me how to do it, let me get some reps using the simple cues you gave me, and then provide some constraints (problems to solve) that reinforce how to get it done, discuss, rinse and repeat.
Agreed. I think distinguishing between what does and doesn't matter is one of the most critical parts of coaching. The advantage of a less explicitly-technical approach is that you avoid overloading your players with technical coaching on stuff that doesn't matter. A lot of coaches do this and they are somewhere between "not helping" and "actively making players worse."
But I think what some (not all, certainly, and not the successful ones) coaches who are invested in EcoD should remember is that sport is physiological, not just neurological. To use the EcoD language, my physical size and strength creates "action capacity" to solve problems in ways that my 5 year-old daughter would not and could not self-organize into. That's an extreme example, but lesser versions of this can be seen even between two 16 year-old players on the same team. Some players who have never tried to pass outside their body and create angles by dropping their back shoulder do not have the strength and mobility to do it well. If they never try it, they never develop that ability. Thus, they'll continue to self-organize into sub-optimal solutions such as always trying to backpedal and get behind hard flat float serves.
Or, to put it into plain English: some players won't try certain things until specifically coached to do so.
exactly we don’t have enough time for them to come to an “optimal” solution most of the time assuming they would ever figure it out. the other possibility is i’m just not good enough implementing constraints, but my players don’t have enough time to wait on me to figure that out so…..
Agreed that's basically the stance I take on it.
Thanks for all the thoughts!
I got caught up on this:
"First, I don’t like passing free balls in tempo. I don’t think passing a free ball lower/faster puts any additional pressure on blockers that are any good. For me, a high pass allows the offense to go faster."
Would be curious if there is any data on how the trajectory of the free ball pass affects hitting efficiency? You can see some teams making the free ball pass faster when one of the blockers is not on the net, being outside the court after having chased down a ball from the stunds. Some teams just do it consistently.
Also related to the height of the first contact: Is there any data on what is the "optimal" height of the reception/pass? In terms of setter being able to keep the attacker in rhytm and FBSO attack efficiency?
*You can see some teams making the free ball pass faster when one of the blockers is not on the net, being outside the court after having chased down a ball from the stunds. Some teams just do it consistently.*
That would make sense to me.
*Also related to the height of the first contact: Is there any data on what is the "optimal" height of the reception/pass? In terms of setter being able to keep the attacker in rhytm and FBSO attack efficiency?*
I don't have optimal data, which I would like to gather. I see the best players in the world generally keep the ball a bit higher than the antenna on float serves and higher passing hard-driven spins. I generally don't see the best teams pass free balls fast... I think offensive tempo is more about the speed from setter to hitter, not from passer to setter. I have seen too many teams try to tempo pass free-balls and it seems to me that all they do is risk making their own middle hitter late.
This is just my opinion though and I don't have concrete data to back it up.
Joe - enjoyed the media wrap up for sure...there's so much now on vb podcasts that it honestly hard to catch everything meaninful...i had listened to most of them but all...thanks for your summary...
and...totally on board with pancake superior to flipper, even though it seems to be gender biased at this point a bit
Agree with the pancakes! I agree with most I hear on volleypod but for most plays where a pancake is useful I feel like the pancake is the best choice. I think about times when I’ve had to pancake and in my head it seems like the only option. The point about refs getting it wrong was the part that kind of sold me. But Joe’s counterpoint put me back on pro pancake for sure!